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Darklords (abbreviated as DL) are a theme of Dark Fairy monsters in the Destiny Soldiers set. Several Darklords were also YCS Prize cards and later released in Phantom Darkness.

Overview:

In a nutshell, in the ABC-Metalfoes-BEWD-Paleozoic format of Winter 2016, Darklords are a theme that follows the BEWD mold of big monsters, heavy drawpower, and anti-meta floodgates.

They are graveyard-based and during either player's turn, for 1000 LP, the new Darklords have the ability to recycle and reuse the effects of an in-theme ROTA (Banishment) and Monster Reborn (Contact), not to mention non-targeting removal Traps, in-theme Raigeki Break (Rebellion) and Brain Control (Enchantment).

With 3 Allure, 3 Trade In, 3 Pot of Desires, 3 Ixchel, and 3 Banishment, and Upstart, plus the copy effects, you play 15+ draw cards, which is this deck's most significant strength.

Also, prior to getting Ukoback in PP19 in the OCG, the deck's Normal Summon (abbreviated NS) is generally available, letting you play power cards like Vanity's Fiend and Denko Sekka.

Monsters:

Darklord Asmodeus

One of the original Darklords, it is now often omitted due to its Summoning restrictions, although this card checks a lot of boxes, LV 8, Fairy, Darklord name, DARK attribute, 3000 ATK floater.
It's a Foolish Burial effect for Superbia, you should play Hecatrice + Valhalla if you want to use this card.
It's worth noting the more Darklord names you play, the more likely Zerato becomes 1 Trib.

Darklord Superbia

Historically, this card was known for the Dark Creator + Superbia + Zerato OTK that put exactly 8K on the board.
It continues to be the center of the Darklord deck - LV 8 for Trade In, makes Rank 8s, can revive Kristya, it gives you 2 Tribs without a NS, etc.
This card also opens a boatload of possibilities like reviving Norden (who is a Fairy!) or Star Seraphs (you have enough drawpower to assemble the combo).
It unfortunately misses timing, so you can't get its revival effect off a copied Contact in grave, since the last thing to happen is the shuffle.
COTH while it misses timing if you chain it to removal, is something to consider, as you can revive the new DL to use their effs as well.

Darklord Zerato

Zerato is LV 8 for Trade In, it has a Raigeki effect for OTKs, and makes Rank 8s.
Since Superbia can't revive itself and Asmodeus can't be SSed, Zerato is your Rank 8 material.

Darklord Morningstar

The boss monster of the theme.
It cannot be Special Summoned so it is often omitted, or played as a 1-of (searchable via Banishment so you play 4(+) copies technically).
Beyond it's Darklord name, Fairy Type, and DARK attribute, it is frequently setup via Darklord Contact -> Superbia -> Fairy, that gives you 2 Tribs without using your NS.
Stuff like the Speedroid engine also provides 2 Tribs.
You can also lean into Monarch support, but that requires you to build around it.

Welp, what do you get for so much investment?

You put 8K+ on the board if your opponent controls 2 Effect monsters, one of them could be Zerato and his Raigeki effect.
Even if your opponent has 1 monster, you put 5800 + Raigeki on the board.

The other nuance that Morningstar offers in in conjunction with Gameciel (LV 8 for Trade In) vs ABC, one of the top decks of the format.
If your opponent tags out, and leaves their Bujintei Tsukiyomi and A+B+C out, you spam them.

It also mills S/T so your DL swarm can gain further card advantage through their effects.

Darklord Ixchel

One of the best Darklords, it has the copy effect, lets you draw cards, and because of Banishment -> this, you can unbrick most hands.
With 3 Allure, 3 Trade In, 3 Pot of Desires, 3 Ixchel, and 3 Banishment, plus the copy effects, you play 15+ draw cards, which is this deck's most significant strength.
It's also LV 10, for Tarantula - one of the win cons of this deck. It's the card that makes you consider Tragoedia, Exodius, or even Trains (like the OCG did).

This card lets you retrieve S/T to hand, without paying LP for them.
This is relevant because adding Contact to hand with Superbia in grave matters because copying/recycling Contact to revive Superbia makes it miss timing.
Contact + Superbia is what lets you do the Superbia, revive new DL (Ixchel in grave is the easy candidate), copy Contact, revive Superbia/Zerato for 8K on the board, or make a Rank 8 + DL board (and that doesn't use your NS so you can end Hope Harbinger + Vanity's Fiend).
Retrieving Ixchel to dig deeper and LV 8 Darklords for Trade In is also a thing.
LV 6 also makes it 1 Trib for Enchantment, and it's a nice level for Synchros/XYZ (e.g. Mali, PSZ Dark Synchro).

Darklord Nasten

One of the consistency cards that start the DL engine, it's a discard outlet for Traps to activate on your turn (and get around Twin Twister), and it Summons itself to copy one of the cards you dumped.
The fact that it Summons itself lets you play around Spell Fragrance, that would otherwise hurt Deep Draw decks like this one.
It's a LV 7 so with cards like Chaos Hunter (another Allure target), you can make Rank 7s.

Darklord Tezcatlipoca

This is the strongest of the new Darklords, with the copy effect, ATK-wise.
A protection DL, it protects vs Raigeki and Dark Hole, Bottomless, and also battle vs 3000 ATK. Unfortunately there is a lot of non-destruction cards nowadays.
Note, you can chain a DL copy effect to Banishment of Darklords to search for Tezcatlipoca as needed, so gives the deck some resiliency.

Spells

Banishment of Darklords

A ROTA for both Darklord monsters and S/T. It essentially means you play 3(+) more copies of a "tech" DL like Morningstar or Amdusc.
It's pretty self-explanatory, but you use it to search Superbia for Trade-In, search Ixchel to unbrick hands and dig deeper, and also works SS2 to search Tezca.

Darklord Contact

A Monster Reborn in DEF mode for Superbia and making XYZ.
A power play is Contact + Superbia to revive new DL (Ixchel in grave is the easy candidate), copy Contact, revive Superbia/Zerato for 8K on the board, or make a Rank 8 + DL board (and that doesn't use your NS so you can end Hope Harbinger + Vanity's Fiend).
It also gives you Tribute fodder to help Tribute Summon Morningstar.

Traps

Darklord Rebellion

Non-targeting Raigeki Break to destroy any card on the field during either player's turn.
When you copy it with the new Darklords, you don't need to pay the cost.

Darklord Enchantment

Non-targeting Brain Control during either player's turn.
While not as versatile as Rebellion, beyond damage, it lets you do things like stealing XYZ and stacking Downerd, Gaia Dragon the Thunder Charger, etc.
You can also Lava Golem or Kaiju them, and steal it back for a Rank 8.
It might be worth it to play Paleozoic Marrella or Kuribandit so you can dump it, Breakthrough Skill, Spiritual SORL - cards that let you go off.

Vanity’s Fiend

1 Trib Monster floodgate that works with Allure of Darkness.
Your Normal Summon is generally available, not to mention you have the drawpower to dig for this card.
Unfortunately, it conflicts with Reasoning which is a good card for dumping S/T, given the different levels the deck has.

Archlord Kristya

LV 8 for Trade-In, works with Superbia, and COTH.
It's worth noting that you can bring it out with Valhalla, works with Reasoning, etc.

Gameciel / Lava Golem

LV 8s for Trade-In.
Lava Golem, you don't care about the NS, and you often need to out 2 monsters, Dark Law + Toadally Awesome, Bahamut Shark, ABC + Tsukiyomi, even Metalfoes, Yang Zing fields.
Gameciel works with Slumber and Radian who is Allure-able or other LV 8 Kaiju, and you can Slumber search for Trade In, Allure targets as well.
Once you clean the floodgates, you can blow these away with Darklord Traps, paving the way for damage.

Metaion

LV 10 Fairy to get rid of established fields, this card is a blowout.

You can SS it with Superbia, make Rank 10s with Ixchel, etc.

Herald of Orange Light / Herald of Green Light

Heralds solve for a problem that Darklords have, Vanity and Kristya are not good if your opponent has already gone off, so you need to get them to halt (Maxx C and DD Crow help).
You also need another layer of protection beyond Tezca, and these fit the bill. You can setup Contact, COTH, etc.
Orange Light doubles up as a LV 2 Tuner, revivable by Superbia into Leo.
Green Light has enormous surprise factor as most players don't know it exists.

Hecatrice / Valhalla

Valhalla is a very interesting card because you can SS Kristya or Asmodeus (who is searchable via Banishment) from hand, who dumps Superbia.
It's also very significant because Hecatrice is a LV 4 that you can dump in grave easily for Norden, who is revivable via Superbia.
Summoning a new DL also gets you going, and having empty fields is possible with Kuribandit, etc.

Norden / Star Seraphs

With all of the drawpower this deck has, you can leverage it to assemble the StickChair combo.
Illuminiknight fits nicely with Darklords and Utopia Prime into Lightning is something new, beyond the usual Delteros. The LP costs of the Darklords could play into Prime.

Number 35: Ravenous Tarantula

One of the win conditions of this deck, it's an upgrade over Ancient Sacred Wyvern in that it doesn't matter if your LP is lower or higher.
It also buffs ALL your monsters, and has a Raigeki effect, so if another monster deals damage first, this and other monsters become even stronger.

Phantom of Chaos

This card is notable for being a Allurable Normal Summon who can copy Darklord effects, not to mention cards like Dark Creator, DAD, etc.
It becomes a beatstick, and works around some of the restrictions this deck has.
Moreover, together with cards like Allure of Darkness, Gold Sarcophagus, Tribute Burial, and Dark Creator, you could play DDR, Miraculous Descent, and Escape from the Dark Dimension.
Note that Asmodeus can be revived from RFG.

Galaxy Wizard + Galaxy Queen's Light

This card doubles as Normal Summonable LV 8, but it also tutors Galaxy Queen's Light, leading to Rank 8 and 10 XYZ Summons.
This is a win condition because you can't really abuse Darklords who have different levels - the copy effect for Contact is free, and offsets the -1, if you care about that.
But given that BEWD plays Ancient Rules, we can play this.

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I've been having a lot of success with this deck in my area playing Valhalla seems bad but how the deck just turbo draws into Kristya it can definitely make otherwise dead hands live.

Wouldn't running Vanity's Fiend though just be easier? Compared to having to draw into a card that needs you to control no monsters, stopped by s/t destruction which is usually null and void against this deck alongside the kristya. Arguments sake being a lv8 is moot as well when you run allure. I guess Valhalla helps getting monsters to the field, but I would probably want to use say call of the haunted over it because it can be used both defensively and offensively ( reviving a kristya, bring back a darklord to use effect on opponent turn etc.)

3 minutes ago, Gojira said:

So with all the draw power/monster reborns in this deck, is there any consideration to modifying it to fit 3 Athena for the infinite damage combo?

With this deck there should be ways to get 8000 with only 2 athena as well.

Refresher on this combo?

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Victor well done on the OP, I think you should probably add denko sekka to it as well.

Some weird techy things I've thought about maybe trying out is gorz and tragoedia for defense, as well as running the calculator for a normal summon beatstick to help for game.

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I actually really dislike Vanity's Fiend in this deck Kristya overall has way more synergy getting 4 fairys in grave is ridiculously easy with Ixchel/Nasten/Amdusc and then when you add Valhalla you are upping it's consistency even more not to mention level 8 for trade in a point that's definitely not moot.

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Oh and playing Valhalla is easier rank 8 access especially if you play Asmodious because a Contact then becomes a free rank 8 and the biggest weaknesses of this deck I noticed with the conventional Vanity's Fiend build was all the mismatched levels and the over reliance on Vanity's Fiend as the win condition.

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What I was meaning there is basically both cards can be ditched for draw cards, so they're equal on that ground.

I do get that the card has more synergy in the deck. I think though just being able to summon it without any hassels other then a tribute has its merits over using all you're effects to try and fuel the summon. Kristya also has the drawback if it is outed, you then have a dead draw for next turn most of the time, which I think people often forget about that part of the effect with her.

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Granted though you are correct that it is probably un-wise to rely on it as a win con, I noticed as well the deck can be pretty linear. I'm curious to hear what you run the deck at as well, because the entire darklord engine plus going first/second cards takes up an enormous amount of space.

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I have limited experience with this deck and with this format in general, but I think Kristya is really bad. The only good way to get it into the graveyard is Trade-In, and any hand that lets you reach 4 Fairies in grave is probably good enough to secure a win regardless of Kristya. I think the deck should just focus on reaching the Superbia + Darklord + trap set-up efficiently; sending Superbia for a trap to activate it once, then copying the trap with your Darklord is surprisingly strong, and the deck doesn't need to do much more than that. So it doesn't make sense to compound the deck's natural inconsistency with cards like Kristya. Then without Kristya, I wouldn't play Trade-In, especially since I want to be using Superbia to activate my traps and to summon good Darklords, not for rank 8s with Zerato.

For the normal summon, I'd go for either Vanity's Fiend or Kuribandit. Neither really increase first-turn consistency, but Kuribandit is useful for placing excess spell/traps in the grave, and can make bland hands stuck on one Darklord/zero Superbia much better. Vanity's Fiend cannot, but can seal games better than Kuribandit. But yeah, I think the goal of the deck should be streamlining it to consistently get Superbia + Darklord + trap, that's the highest power level you need to reach, and pursuing stuff like Kristya/Valhalla/Hecatrice/Star Seraphs only unnecessarily adds to power while taking away consistency.

Reasoning is cool, but its conflicts with Maxx "C", Kuribandit, and Vanity's Fiend mean its probably not worth playing. Plus, only being able to summon the new Darklords once per turn means hitting Ixchel or Nasten

I thought a Zombie engine with Hecatrice and Valhalla (and Kristya) might be cool for various reasons. Omega is really good for putting spell/traps banished from Desires back into the graveyard, Omega -> banish -> Valhalla -> summon Kristya is much stronger than Valhalla -> summon Kristya, and playing both allowed for Instant Fusion. Ultimately, I found the Zombie engine took up too much space, gave too many dead draws, and conflicted too much with Desires. Hecatrice and Valhalla were also pretty bad because I rarely needed a summon past Contact(s) and Nasten, and Instant Fusion wasn't enough to make up for these deficiencies.

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I'm enjoying this deck quite a bit. I'm playing 2 kristya and 2 vanity's fiend in my build at the moment. Kristya can also be dumped by twin twister which can be pretty relevant. I've been running 2 call of the haunted in my build though which has synergy with kristya but is pretty terrible when going second and gives your opponent something to actually hit with their twin twisters. Was considering cutting them.

For those playing Morningstar (I am as well), how often do you find yourself actually using it?

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@sess I've hardly played the card, but managed to pull off its effect once and it won me the duel

Another tech idea, could be decent for second and first, especially with kristya and superbia ;

Celestial Transformation

Spell-Quick Play

Special summon one Fairy type monster from your hand. That monster's ATK is halved, and is destroyed during the end phase.

It might be interesting if you have a hand with just a darklord banishment and not much else going for you. Could also tribute the summoned monster for vanity's field or kristya. I think summoning kristya off of this would probably be bad though since it would get top-decked at the end phase right?

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It might be interesting if you have a hand with just a darklord banishment and not much else going for you. Could also tribute the summoned monster for vanity's field or kristya. I think summoning kristya off of this would probably be bad though since it would get top-decked at the end phase right?

True, but it's a defensive option, a trap-stun Vanity if you will. Maybe you could run cards such as forbidden lance to protect it, or tribute it for advance draw.

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I'm enjoying this deck quite a bit. I'm playing 2 kristya and 2 vanity's fiend in my build at the moment. Kristya can also be dumped by twin twister which can be pretty relevant. I've been running 2 call of the haunted in my build though which has synergy with kristya but is pretty terrible when going second and gives your opponent something to actually hit with their twin twisters. Was considering cutting them.

For those playing Morningstar (I am as well), how often do you find yourself actually using it?

Kuribandit is a neat idea though, would be interesting to try out.

I'm enjoying it a lot as well I really feel like this is the best deck in the format at playing going second so using things like COTH aren't going to help you and are definitely going to be bricks a lot of the time.

I side Morningstar against certain matchups when I go second it's definitely a blow out card but can be pretty hard to summon and then get its effect off with a lot of trap heavy decks in the meta right now.

To the poster above I once again don't see when Transformation is ever going to be better than Valhalla a card which everyone seems to be neglecting but is a key card in solving the weakness of the current popularised build. The card makes Nasten so much better sometimes discarding two for its effect is good but most of the time it isn't and that's where Valhalla adds more consistency.

My current build that I recommend everyone interested in this deck to at least try out is

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It's main strength is that it's a quickplay, so decent going first or second and isn't easily as outed. You can also use it offensively or defensively.

But i'll give your build a go and see how it fairs. It looks like a fairly decent go first build, which is this deck's strength, but making it better for second is probably what needs to be improve on most of us agree.

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I could have sworn kristya was semi-limited for some reason but guess I was wrong. I like the idea of just running 3 kristya and no vanity's fiend, think I will test it.

I like at least 2 copies of rebellion though, I found myself banishing both traps very frequently with desires when I just played 1 of each. Also how is 3 desires? Do you think we should just play 3 anyway regardless of the very high chance of drawing 2 copies with all the draw power our deck has? Another thing is maybe going to 41 to play an upstart goblin would be a good idea unless you think the life point difference is relevant. In the past going over 40 with upstart was like blasphemy to me, but now it is a card that can get banished by desires that you don't care at all about.

Also the defensive celestial transformation seems a bit weak to me as they can just run over the kristya.

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I also topped a regionals with this deck (Sneaked in 8th place to just make it) with a list similar to the one Jono as he is one of the few people I discuss the game with. I pretty much winged the deck becasue the night before he was meant to teach me how to play the deck but I decided to go out for drinks instead.

The deck isn't very good, has little to no come back, board control or stabilization or whatever but is definitely fun to paly for OTK's with big guys

1

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Also for what its worth you can also play Radian Kaiju and use 7 Star sword as radian, nastan and chaos hunter are targets along with all 3 also being targets for allure. Trade IN is probably still better as it dumps the superbia though

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I could have sworn kristya was semi-limited for some reason but guess I was wrong. I like the idea of just running 3 kristya and no vanity's fiend, think I will test it.

I like at least 2 copies of rebellion though, I found myself banishing both traps very frequently with desires when I just played 1 of each. Also how is 3 desires? Do you think we should just play 3 anyway regardless of the very high chance of drawing 2 copies with all the draw power our deck has? Another thing is maybe going to 41 to play an upstart goblin would be a good idea unless you think the life point difference is relevant. In the past going over 40 with upstart was like blasphemy to me, but now it is a card that can get banished by desires that you don't care at all about.

Also the defensive celestial transformation seems a bit weak to me as they can just run over the kristya.

I feel like kristya getting stuck on top of the deck is a huge downside